Sean Dyche is willing to sanction deadline-day departures for Alex Iwobi and Tom Cannon from Everton despite uncertainty over how much money he will get to reinvest in his struggling squad.
The Nigeria midfielder Iwobi could join Fulham for £20m plus add-ons on Friday while the homegrown striker Cannon is a £7m target for Norwich. Demarai Gray is also wanted by the Saudi Pro League side Al-Shabab, although their transfer window remains open for another week.
Everton need sales to fund any further incomings, with a right-sided forward a priority for Dyche, who also requires defensive reinforcements. The club have had several offers rejected by Leeds for Wilfried Gnonto while West Ham’s Maxwel Cornet, whom Dyche signed when the manager of Burnley, and Southampton’s Kamaldeen Sulemana are also on the list. How much will be available to spend, however, rests on the structure of any deals for Iwobi and Cannon plus a final decision from the Everton hierarchy.
“If anything happens with those two players we’ll quickly assess what we can do next,” said Dyche. He added: “To be clear, we are not waiting for that to happen and then going to search; we are already in line.
“The money will be decided by the powers that be. What comes in, what is available to go out. One thing for fans to be aware of is that whatever money you get, you don’t get it in one go. It is chunked down into different payments and different plans and we have had to work hard to find different ways for that to work for us, so that has to be factored in as well.
“If you physically got £20m in you might be able to stretch that out for a couple of players, but it is rare that you physically get that £20m in a lump sum. Then it goes to the club and you say: ‘What out of that can we put back into a deal to make it work?’”
Iwobi has played an important part in Everton’s past two relegation escapes but has entered the final year of his contract. The club has lost too many assets on free transfers under the ownership of Farhad Moshiri and Dyche indicated the 27-year-old is keen to move for financial reasons. “There’s usually a reason why players go elsewhere,” he said. “I’ll leave that to your imagination. But it’s pretty clear.”
